


and five makes...well, five

by thepensword



Series: queer siblings club (luthers not invited) [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Platonic Relationships, Realizing you're gay, five gets asked out while in a coffee shop. how lucky! unfortunately he thinks its a Threat, five x oc but just trust me on this one its not about the oc and i swear you'll like him, i. dont know how to tag this one uhhhh, we have now broken free from canon and im just doing whatever at this point. enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26094100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepensword/pseuds/thepensword
Summary: “Holy shit, Klaus," says Five. "I think I might be gay.”(Five receives a "threat". Klaus is the absolute worst mission supportever.)
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: queer siblings club (luthers not invited) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882855
Comments: 58
Kudos: 547





	and five makes...well, five

**Author's Note:**

> five: i'm 58  
> me, slapping him with a sticker that just says "baby" on it: no you aren't <3
> 
> current queer siblings club roster:  
> -klaus (pansexual and nonbinary)  
> -vanya (lesbian)  
> -allison (bisexual)  
> -ben (trans and bi. I didn’t mention the bi thing in his fic but he is)  
> -and now for the fifth member...

There is a boy in the coffee shop.

It is an ordinary day, approximately two months after the Hargreeves siblings’ return to their original timeline and correlated success in saving the world. It is an ordinary day, and for that it is remarkable, because it is a day that should not have existed. _Did_ not exist, once. More than once. In many of the more identical timelines, still doesn’t. But this is this timeline, and in this timeline, today is ordinary.

Five isn’t really sure what to do with that. He’s not really sure who he is when there isn’t blood rushing in his ears, when he isn’t trying to get home, to save the world, to finish the mission, to not ever, ever see his family’s corpses again. He’s not the boy he was before he jumped, and he’s not the lonely man he grew into after, nor is he the determined assassin he’d been forced to become after that. No, now he’s fifty eight (fifty nine?), and newly fourteen, and both and neither and the sun is shining and the birds won’t stop _fucking_ singing, and Allison had told him he’s not even allowed to drink anymore because the alcohol might stunt his growth and he can’t even _hold_ the liquor anymore anyway without getting dizzy and nauseous and the few times he’d drunk since coming back it had tasted _disgusting_ on his underdeveloped tastebuds but he’d drank it anyway just to prove a point to himself and—

He slams his cup of coffee down on the table a little too hard and has to resist the urge to grab the nearest plastic butter knife and start stabbing people, just to feel normal again. Maybe he should join a crime syndicate or something. Maybe he should enroll in a public high school.

But he is Number Five of the Umbrella Academy, and he is _better than that_. He has been to hell and back, quite literally, and he has lived a lifetime already. So what if that life wasn’t really a life at all? So what if he never actually got the chance to grow up? He’s getting another stab at it, isn’t he? And he’s the smartest of his siblings, they’ve all always said so, so he’ll figure it out. He always does. 

Even if he doesn’t really know who he is. Even if he’s not sure whether he feels more like he’s fourteen or fifty-nine. Even if there’s another boy in this coffee shop who won’t _stop fucking looking at him._

The boy looks...normal. Disappointingly so. Suspiciously so. He’s probably around Five’s age (since when did he start thinking of this body as his age?), so around fourteen or fifteen. He has brown eyes and dark hair. He’s wearing a striped button down, short sleeved, buttoned all the way up to the collar and tucked into pale-wash jeans that are cuffed at the bottom. Scuffed Converse. He doesn’t look like much, but, then again, neither does Five.

Five sneaks another glance at the Converse, because you can tell a lot from somebody’s shoes; are the scuffs from running? Fighting? Is there blood? Dirt from a different biome? Were the shoes manufactured in a different century? 

Irritatingly, the boy’s Converse just look...normal. Scuffs from walking, light running, maybe a skateboard. Street shoes. One shoe is double-knotted to prevent the too-long laces from dragging, but the other one has come untied, which is a liability. Untied shoelaces could mean tripping could mean falling could mean death. Untied shoelaces are unacceptable.

So whoever this boy is, whatever he wants, he’s an amateur, and Five can probably take him. He takes another drink of coffee and reminds himself not the fall into the trap of underestimating his opponent. That’s how they get you.

Five finishes his coffee at what he judges to be a precisely ordinary pace and does his best to give no indication that he’s noticed the boy staring. He stands, slow and casual, and carries his mug over to the dish tray. The boy makes no move during this time, nor does he make a move to stop Five as he exits the coffee shop, but in a brief moment before the door closes, they make eye contact.

The boy smiles. And then...then he _winks_. Five does not smile back. Instead he narrows his eyes and walks away at the fastest speed that can still realistically be deemed casual. He doesn’t want it to seem like he’s running. If you run, that’s an invitation for your opponent to give chase. Five will not take the bait. He is not prey.

Still, he muses, as he gets a far enough distance away that he feels comfortable jumping to the nearest rooftop to observe the street, it’s strange that the boy had let him leave so easily. Whatever his game was, it hasn’t yet been revealed, and that? That fills Five with dread more than anything. There is little in this world he hates more than not knowing. Not knowing gets you stranded far in the future with no way home. Not knowing gets you killed. 

And that’s not an option.

* * *

Five waits a day before going back to the coffee shop, but he does go back. Part of him is screaming to simply stay away; if he managed to evade the threat once, why should he invite trouble by returning to the scene? But he still doesn’t know who the boy is or what he wants and it’s driving him _crazy_. What if the boy realizes he’s not coming back to the coffee shop and follows him home? Attacks his family like Hazel and Cha Cha had? Five has to shake away the memory of the torture scars all over Klaus, of the haunted look in his sibling’s eyes. He doesn’t have time for trauma. 

He doesn’t just walk into the coffee shop, though. He’s not a fool. Instead, he crouches on the roof of the building across the street and watches for hours and hours. A little bit after 10am, the boy appears a few buildings down. He’s riding a skateboard—Five had been right about the scuff marks on those Converse of his—which he steps off of and slips onto his back upon reaching the coffee shop. He enters the shop, posture casual, but before the door closes Five sees the boy look towards the table where Five had previously been sitting. Hm.

It’s impossible to see inside the shop once the door has closed; the windows just reflect the street outside, providing little more use than mirrors. At approximately 10:30am Five takes a deep breath and makes the decision to enter the shop.

The boy is, as expected, inside. He is not, however, at the same table as last time. No, now he’s sitting closer to the corner where Five had been. Five goes to the counter and orders his coffee, keeping watch on the boy from his peripherals as he does so. Once he’s ordered, he finds he’s not sure where he should sit. His table from last time was chosen because it is strategically the safest; positioned in the back corner, it’s possible to sit with his back to the wall and survey the entire coffee shop. From there, no one can sneak up behind him, and he’ll see any approaching threats. So the question is: where to sit today? If he sits at the same table, he’s placing himself closer to the boy, which could be seen as inviting an attack. If he sits somewhere else, he’ll have to choose between having his back to the wall, seeing the front door, and seeing the boy. He thinks he can manage two of those things at a few of the tables, but not all three at once. Fine. Same table, then. If the boy tries to start something, at least Five will see it coming. 

He gets his coffee (iced, black. He prefers hot coffee but he doesn’t want to risk boiling water getting spilled on him during an attack) and carefully moves to the table. He has to pass the boy to do it, so he keeps his pace as casual as possible and sneaks a hand into his pocket to grip the pocket knife he keeps there, just in case, but the boy doesn’t move except to look up at his passing and smile.

Fuck. That’s so... _unsettling_. Why does he keep _smiling?_ Five bites his tongue in irritation and sits down at his chosen table, very deliberately taking a sip of his coffee and using the opportunity to do a scan of the shop. Nothing looks out of the ordinary, just normal customers on a normal morning. Except for the boy, who keeps sneaking glances at Five over the muffin he’s eating. He’s not even trying to be _subtle_ about it, which means he’s either a total amateur or he’s very, very confident in his abilities. Or perhaps it’s a ploy? Maybe he’s trying to seem inexperienced to lull Five into a false sense of security, or maybe it’s some sort of bizarre power-play to show his ease of ability and put Five on edge. Maybe he’s trying to tell Five that it doesn’t matter that Five is onto him, because he’ll be able to take him either way. 

Time stretches in its ordinary, painful way. A glance at the clock tells Five it’s only been minutes but for some reason it _feels_ like so much longer. There’s a sensation like ants crawling under his skin and he has to resist the urge to swing his legs to relieve the feeling. He’s not fourteen anymore. He’s _not_. Even though it’s so much harder to stay calm than it had when he was in an adult’s body. Even though his stupid, growing, underdeveloped, hormonal brain is racing frantically, pumping his veins with adrenaline and making his hands tremble on the knife he’s white-knuckling. This is _bullshit_.

Before Five can do something incredibly stupid like slam his hands on the table and yell _just do something already!,_ the boy finishes his muffin and takes out a pen. He glances at Five, grins, and scribbles something on a napkin. Then he stands and approaches.

Five’s entire body tenses in anticipation. At least something’s finally _happening_. He inhales, willing his shoulders to relax, and glares at the boy. He doesn’t pull out the knife yet, though, nor does he stand; it wouldn’t do to reveal himself too early. The boy doesn’t know he’s onto him yet. (He thinks.)

“Hey,” says the boy when he reaches the table. “I’m Teddy.”

Five stares at him, not sure what to do about this new development. He does not relax. “Hello,” he says tersely.

The boy—Teddy—shifts on his feet with what almost looks like nerves. “Uh,” he says. “So, mind if I ask your name?”

“Yes,” says Five.

Teddy blinks at him. “Oh,” he says. Then he laughs, shakes his head. “Well, maybe we can get to that, mystery-kid. Uh, I just wanted to say I’ve seen you sitting in here a few times. I don’t know if you noticed me until recently? Sorry, this might be weird. Um. I like your, uh, your hair.”

“My hair,” repeats Five flatly.

Teddy shifts again and runs a hand nervously over his own curls. “Uh, yep,” he laughs. “Yep, it’s cool. Cool—cool hair. Anyway! I was wondering if, um, I was wondering if you’re free this weekend? Like, we could just meet here if that’s what you’re more comfortable with but there’s this new arcade down the street that I’ve been meaning to check out for a while and I was wondering if you’d like to join me?” He raises his hands in the air hurriedly, and Five watches them suspiciously as if Teddy might somehow be hiding a weapon in them. “It’s okay if not, though! I know this is kind of out of nowhere and you don’t know me and this might be weird? But anyway yeah. Uh, here’s my number. Call me, I guess?” He places the napkin on Five’s table, but Five isn’t so stupid as to take his eyes off of a potential opponent for even a second. “Anyway, yeah. I’ll let you drink your coffee in peace. Um. Bye, mystery-boy!”

And then—confusingly, stupefyingly—he turns tail and leaves. 

_What_ , thinks Five, _the absolute fuck._

* * *

When Five appears in the manor’s kitchen, the only person there is Klaus, who jumps at his entrance and very nearly knocks over his cereal. “Motherfucker,” says Klaus. Then he says, “hi, Five! Long time no see!”

“I saw you yesterday,” points out Five. “Why are you eating cereal for lunch?”

Klaus looks at him. Then he looks at the cereal. Then he looks at Five again. “This is breakfast,” he says.

Five sighs. Of course it is. Of course, because this is Klaus. “Of course,” he says out loud. “Where are the others?”

“Out,” says Klaus, mid-mouthful of cereal, which....gross. “Vanya has dress rehearsal for her concert Saturday. Diego’s doing...whatever the hell Diego does. Luther’s out running.”

And Allison is out-of-town visiting her daughter. Great. That means Klaus is his only option. Five contemplates just handling this by himself but he’d promised Vanya he’d start relying on them all more. Stop keeping everything tucked up inside his chest, stop playing Atlas, so fine. He’ll share with Klaus.

“Fine,” says Five, and sits down across from his sibling. “I need your help.”

Klaus raises an eyebrow and eats another spoonful of his cereal. “Help? Are we finally going shopping to get you some non-grandpa, non-schoolboy clothing?” 

Five is already regretting bringing Klaus into this and he hasn’t even told him what they’re doing yet. Still, he’d promised, and Five is a lot of things but he’s not someone who breaks promises to his siblings. “Ok, first?” he says. “Don’t talk with your mouth full. That’s disgusting. Second, I need you to watch my back. I’m being threatened or challenged, but I’m not sure by who or for what reason yet, so I need you there in case things go horribly wrong.” 

Things, in Five’s experience, _always_ go horribly wrong.

Klaus goes to take another mouthful and then seems to think better of it and instead puts his spoon down in the bowl and uses his forearm to wipe the milk away from his mouth. “Uh huh,” he says. “Ok, I’ll bite— _what?_ ”

Five has to close his eyes and take a deep, slow breath. “I just _told_ you, someone is _threatening_ me.”

“Yeah, no, I got that,” says Klaus, waving a hand in the air in a wide gesture. “But also, like, _what?_ Details, s’il vous plaît? Elaborate? Who’s threatening you and in what manner did they do the, y’know, threatening? Get a visit from Billy Bones? Mysterious phone call? Bloody message on the wall? What am I agreeing to here, Juno Steel?”

“This,” says Five, and slides the napkin across the table. “Kid in the coffee shop. Either an amateur or he’s trying to knock me off my game. Gave me this and told me to meet at the new arcade this weekend. I don’t know what he wants but if he’s giving vague threats like this it can’t be good.”

Klaus stares at him, mouth agape, and smooths one finger across the napkin. Then, because Klaus is an infuriating human being, he throws back his head and starts _laughing_.

“What?” hisses Five, but Klaus doesn’t seem to hear him over his absolute hysterics, so Five kicks him in the shins. “ _Stop that_. This is _serious!_ ”

“Yeah, _so_ serious,” wheezes Klaus, doubled over and half-falling out of his chair with laughter. “A threat. A _threat_. Fuck, Five, this is—this is—this is the funniest shit you’ve ever said, holy _shit_ —”

Five has just about had enough of not being taken seriously so he jumps to the other side of the table, behind Klaus, and kicks his chair out from under him. Klaus sprawls on his ass on the floor which for some reason just makes him laugh harder, so Five takes the cereal and dumps it on him.

 _That_ makes him stop laughing, finally, which is good because Five was about three seconds away from stabbing him with a kitchen knife, which would have made Mom upset and pissed off every single one of his siblings. Five is trying to be _nice_ now. Which is stupid, but he’s relieved enough about having living non-corpse siblings that he attempts it anyway, though the shine is very much starting to wear off.

“ _Hey!_ ” says Klaus, sitting up and staring in disgust at the froot loops dripping from his silk robe. “This was my best robe!”

Five doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead he kicks Klaus’ thigh and hisses, “ _Would you take something seriously for once in your life?_ ”

Klaus pouts at him. “Maybe _you_ need to try taking things _less_ seriously. Lighten up a little, Five-o! I mean jeez,” he eyes Five’s foot, “is the violence really necessary?”

“ _Extremely_ necessary,” Five bites back, “considering you’re _laughing_ at the fact that I could be in _serious danger_.”

Klaus rolls his eyes and uses the edge of the table to pull himself up. Froot loops cascade from the creases of his robes and hit the floor in soggy plops that make both of them wrinkle up their noses. Five notices that they’re wearing almost the exact same expression, looking every bit the part of two people who grew up in the same household, and quickly smooths out his face and tilts his chin in disdain. 

“Christ,” mutters Klaus as he tries in vain to wring the milk out of his hair. “Ok, fine, I’ll be serious. Here’s my serious face, look. See? Serious.” He passes a hand in front of his face, transitioning from serious to grinning to serious again. “Face on. Robe ruined. Hair in need of shampooing. Five, bud, nobody’s threatening you.”

“Yes, they are!” insists Five, pointing emphatically at the napkin. “I told you—”

“Ok, fine,” says Klaus. “Have a seat. Start from the beginning. A kid in the coffee shop gave you his number and issued a threat. How old was he? What did he look like? What did he say, exactly?”

Five narrows his eyes. Klaus is being strangely cooperative suddenly. Still, even if it’s weird at least they’re finally getting somewhere, so he sits back down at the table and folds his hands together, rubbing his knuckles. “Fourteen or fifteen,” he says. 

“So...your age.”

“ _Not_ my age, I’m—”

“Your age,” repeats Klaus. “Continue.”

“You are my least favorite sibling,” Five spits. This is a lie. Klaus is by far the most likely of his siblings to go along with Five’s schemes, which ranks him at least above Luther.

Klaus just bats a hand at him. “Continue!”

“Fine,” huffs Five, irritated. He’d promised to be more communicative. He’d promised. Even with Klaus. This is fine. Don’t get mad, just communicate. Communication is easy. It’s just talking. “He had a medium build. Maybe 5’6 or 5’7 if I had to guess but he was sitting for most of the time I saw him so I’m not sure. A little bit on the stocky side. He didn’t look too terribly muscled, but looks can be deceiving. Curly black hair, brown eyes. Casual clothing, period-typical, standard scuffs on shoes. Rode a skateboard the second time I saw him.”

Klaus is raising an eyebrow at him. “Period-typical?”

“Clothes that look like they belong in the present day, you idiot. Means he’s either not a time traveler or he’s making an effort to blend in.”

“Ah,” says Klaus, though the expression on his face says he doesn’t really get it. He glances to the side like he’s exchanging looks with someone—probably Ben, which makes Five realize he probably should have acknowledged Ben’s presence at some point earlier since that’s a thing they’re doing now, apparently, but if he says something now he’ll reveal that he’d forgotten. But he’s trying to be honest. And “nice”. So—

“Hi, Ben,” says Five. “Tell Klaus he’s an idiot.”

Klaus makes an offended face, and then a second offended face off to the side, and then says, “Ben says I’m a perfect angel and also the bestest sibling ever and also you’re a rude little shit.”

“Sure,” Five says skeptically. “Anyway, _focus_. The first time I noticed him he just sat there and watched me. Smiled a few times. Winked when I left. Second time he sat closer to my previous table, forcing me to make a tactical decision about whether to sit there or somewhere else. Clearly he was testing me to see what I’d do. Eventually he came up to me and issued the threat.”

“What—okay, sure. What did he say _exactly?_ ”

Five taps his chin, thinking back. It’s times like these where he’s grateful for his younger brain and the better memory it comes with, though he’s sure his thoughts were a little less....scattered before he got stuck in the apocalypse. It’s possible all that trauma that he definitely does not have messed with his ability to recall specific details, but he deftly avoids thinking about that and focuses instead on the encounter in the coffee shop. 

“He said his name was Teddy. He wanted to know my name, and when I wouldn’t tell him he said ‘we’ll get to that’, which implies he intends to continue shadowing me. Then he complimented my hair.” He scoffs at that, curling his lip in scorn. “Idiot. If he’s hoping flattery will ease me into a false sense of security he should have gone for something better than my _hair_ , not that it would work anyway. After that he asked me if I was free this weekend. Told me to meet him at either the coffee shop or the arcade down the street. I’m not sure but I assume he’s trying to unsettle me by making the location unclear. It’s harder to plan a confrontation when it could be occurring in two different places, but the idiot forgot to account for the fact that I can teleport and having two locations doesn’t really matter, especially when they’re so close together. I can easily case out both and be prepared for either one. Then he gave me the napkin and told me to call him? Presumably that’s when I’ll receive further details, maybe even to put me in touch with his employer. After that he left.”

Klaus’ mouth is hanging open. He looks stupid like that—or maybe it would be more accurate to say he looks _more_ stupid than usual, which is an impressive feat in and of itself. Then he says, “Ben is laughing at you.”

Five grits his teeth so hard he thinks he feels something crack. “Ben. If you weren’t already dead I’d kill you myself. And _you—”_ he says, leaning across the table to grab Klaus by the collar of his disgusting milk-and-cereal soaked silk robe. “ _Focus_.”

“I _am_ focusing,” whines Klaus. “Five, buddy, I’m gonna say something and you’re gonna have to shut up and listen to me, okay? Cuz you’re not gonna want to hear it.”

“Fine,” growls Five, letting go of Klaus’ collar but not back away from where he’s leaned across the table. “What.”

Klaus closes his eyes and inhales deeply as if _Five_ is the one testing _his_ patience. “Okay,” says Klaus, opening his eyes again. “Alright. Five, you are not being threatened. That boy was not threatening you. This?” Here he holds up the napkin with its damnable phone number. “Not a threat.”

“But—”

“Hey, shut up. No talky. Klaus’ turn,” says Klaus, which makes Five fume silently. Klaus puts down the napkin and reaches across the table to grab Five’s hands, forcing him to stop the restless tapping he didn’t even notice he’d started doing. He wants to pull away but a small, stupid part of him craves the sensation of human touch, so he allows it. 

“Teddy,” says Klaus, very slowly and patiently, as if Five is a child. (He’s not a child. He’s _not_.) “is not threatening you. He thinks you’re cute, and he is asking you out on a date.”

Five starts to protest but then the words fully click in his brain and he sort of just. Stops. _What?_

“What?” he says dumbly. 

“This is a phone number,” says Klaus, which Five already knew. “He told you to call him because he wants to get to know you better. He told you to meet him at the new arcade so you can hang out. He’s just a gay kid who saw another kid his age, thought he was cute, and asked him out. Asked _you_ out. As such, I am justified in laughing at you and am awaiting your sincere and heartfelt apology for tragically spilling my froot loops and ruining my favorite silk robe, which I’m sure is coming any minute now.”

“Fuck you,” says Five, though there’s not much bite to it because he is still absolutely reeling. A _date?_ Teddy thought he was _cute?_ And asked him on a _date?_

Oh, god, his cheeks are hot. Is he blushing? God, he hopes he’s not blushing, that would be childish and embarrassing and _stupid._ “No, that can’t be right,” he says. “That doesn’t—no. He’s threatening me. Right? He has to be. Maybe he...maybe he wants a duel. Or—or something.”

Klaus is looking at him pityingly, which just makes Five want to kick him again. “Little Five-o has a date,” he all bit sings, and sways Five’s hands back and forth like any minute now he’ll get up and force Five to waltz with him. “I’m so proud! It’s about time, don’t you think, Ben?”

“That’s stupid,” says Five. “You’re stupid. Also, I—okay, even _if_ it were a date, which it _isn’t_ , I’m too old for him.”

“Hm,” hums Klaus thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think so.”

“ _No?_ ”

“Well, let’s play this out,” says Klaus. “What _is_ age? We’ve been thinking about it like there are two factors that make your age, right? Your physical age, like the age your body literally physically is right now, and then your mental age, which is your consciousness. When you popped up again you said your body was thirteen but your consciousness was fifty-eight and we all just sort of went with it. But it’s actually more complicated than that, right? We’ve been acting like because your consciousness has lived for fifty-nine years you’re actually an old geezer, but your mental age is really just like...a mix of experience and the literal age of your actual brain, which doesn’t finish maturing until adulthood. So physically, you’re fourteen. Mentally, you have a fourteen-year-old, pubescent, undercooked brain. No matter how old your consciousness is, your brain is still baking. You’re like...a frozen chicken nugget.”

“What does that even—”

“Shush.” Klaus lets go of Five hands to instead cover his mouth with one cereal-sticky palm. His age and maturity already under scrutiny, Five decides to just go all in and lick it. Klaus recoils in shock and wipes his hand on his robe, which of course just makes it worse. With a defeated sigh, Klaus puts his hand back on the table. “So that just leaves experience, right? Age and maturity come through life experience.”

“Which I have fifty-nine years of,” Five points out sullenly. “Which makes me way too old for Teddy.”

“Ok, but do you, though? Have life experience?” asks Klaus, raising both eyebrows and not waiting for an answer before continuing. “Like, okay, technically you do. But you didn’t really get to grow up, did you? You were a tiny super-kiddo and then you were in the apocalypse. No growth period. And once you were in the apocalypse, what then? Did you grow up? Isn’t life experience made out of social interaction with other human beings? Education? Adult-ing skills? Paying rent, working jobs, stealing Dad’s credit cards, buying a motorcycle with said credit cards, crashing said motorcycle into a building while super drunk and high at the same time, et cetera?”

“That seems oddly specific.”

Klaus ignores him and just bulldozes ahead. “My _point_ is that you didn’t get any of that. You got raw survival skills, all on your own, with no adult guidance and no other social interaction. And after _that_ you played assassin for a bit and I’m sorry but I don’t think that really counts as socialization. The dead are shitty conversationalists, and I should know! Present company excluded of course, no offense, Ben. Which means physically and mentally you’re fourteen and experience-wise you’re...I dunno, but you’re not an adult.”

Five is...Five is floundering. What the hell, he thinks. He’s—he’s—Klaus isn’t _wrong_ , is the thing. Five doesn’t know _shit_ about what it means to be an adult human being in a stable world. He knows how to kill, and how to fight, and how to make a single expired twinkie last for a whole week, and how to find water that won’t poison him. He knows how not to die—he doesn’t, he realizes, know how to live.

“But,” he says, “but, legally—”

“Legally you’re still a missing person case,” says Klaus. “Maybe let’s not touch legally.”

“Fuck.”

“Cheers to that,” grins Klaus, and the expression makes Five want nothing more than to punch him right in his stupid face. He’d be justified, he thinks. Vanya would understand. Probably. 

“I—” says Five instead, standing. “I need to. I’m—fuck.” And then, because he can’t stand looking at Klaus’s stupid grin for even a second longer, he jumps to his room where he can have a crisis about this in peace.

* * *

He ends up calling Teddy.

“Hello?” says the boy on the other end of the line, bright and curious. “Who’s this?”

Five chews on the end of the pen he’s holding before answering. He’s been scribbling equations into a notebook out of sheer nervous habit. “Um,” he says, and then silently curses his own lack of composure. He’s a professional, damnit. And now he’s starting sentences with _um?_ “This is Five. From the coffee shop.”

“Oh!” exclaims Teddy. “Mystery boy! Hi! I didn’t think you’d actually—um. Hi! Hi. Five, huh?”

“Yes,” says Five flatly.

“Like the number?”

“Yes.”

Teddy laughs, breathy and nervous. He certainly doesn’t _sound_ like an assassin. “Right...so, how’ve you been? I mean, it’s only been a few hours but how’s...how’s your day going?”

Five circles an x variable in his notebook and then scribbles it out. “Fine,” he says. “I—Teddy. I have questions. For you.”

“Shoot!”

“Is this—” Five flounders for a minute and has to remind himself that he’s a cold-blooded assassin and child superhero who has faced down the literal end of the world _multiple times_ and survived it. “What is it you want from me?”

“Well,” says Teddy shyly, and it sounds like he’s smiling. “I want to get to know you, I guess. I don’t usually...I’m not usually this forward? I don’t want you to get the wrong impression of me, I wouldn’t usually do this but I thought you were, uh.” He clears his throat audibly. “I thought you were, y’know, cute? And I was texting my friends and they said I should just go for it so I just. Went for it? I’m sorry if that freaked you out at all. You looked kinda spooked earlier which is why I was a little surprised you called.”

“Oh,” says Five. “Oh. So you did...you did mean—you did mean it like. A date.”

Another laugh. “Yeah! I mean, if you’re up for that. No pressure, though! It can be super low stakes, like, just hang out and get to know each other and if we hit it off, great! Otherwise it’s still fine. And even if we, y’know, don’t hit it off like that we can also just decide to be friends. Or nothing! If we hang out and you never want to see me again that’s cool too. But I figured...I dunno, I guess lately I’ve been thinking about, like, taking leaps? I don’t want to get old and die and be regretting all the leaps I could have taken, y’know? So I’m taking them, because why not?”

 _Because why not,_ thinks Five. God. He knows _exactly_ what it’s like to grow old and regret all of the things he should or should not have done. He regrets not spending more time with his siblings, not sticking around to find out what went wrong, not waiting until he knew what he was doing before running away. Leaps are great, sure, but he _did_ that. He _took_ the leap, and all it got him was a ruined life and the end of the world. But, then again, Klaus had been right, hadn’t he? Five missed out on a lot of living, and maybe he should be working harder to catch up. 

_Seconds, not decades,_ thinks Five. _Baby steps._

“Sorry if that was too deep,” laughs Teddy awkwardly. 

“No,” says Five. “No, it was—listen, I have to go.”

“Wh—oh, okay. Um—”

“I’ll call you back,” says Five, before he can stop himself, and then he hangs up. 

* * *

“I’m not gay.”

Klaus raises an eyebrow. He’s changed and showered, hair still dripping but now free of milk and cereal. The silk robe is nowhere in sight; maybe Mom is washing it. “You’re not gay?”

“No,” says Five. “I’m not.”

He’d filled his sibling in on the phone call in as little detail as possible and now they’re sitting in the living room on opposite couches. Klaus is cross-legged, hands on his knees, observing him thoughtfully. “How do you know?” he asks.

“What—I just know.”

“Do you?” Klaus presses. “I mean, like we said before it’s not like you have a whole lot of experience—”

Five can’t take this anymore. He stands up and starts pacing back and forth between the couches, occasionally foregoing a loop and just jumping to the other side of his circle agitatedly. “I’d know, though, right? I’d know. I’m not stupid, I know things.”

“Of course you’re not stupid,” says Klaus, soothingly. “But that doesn’t mean you’d _know_. I mean, if you’re not that’s cool, but you seem to be blushing pretty hard there, Casanova.” 

Five’s hands fly to his cheeks before he can stop them. Infuriatingly, Klaus is right. His face is very, very warm. “But what about Dolores?” he tries, because he loves Dolores so much it hurts sometimes, deep down in the pit of his gut where the hunger once sat, devouring him from the inside out. 

“Five, Dolores is a mannequin.”

 _That_ gets Five’s hackles up. “If you’re going to try to tell me I couldn’t have really been in love with her I already got enough of that from Diego, _thank you_ _very much_ ,” he snaps, and Klaus raises his hands placatingly.

“No, no, you misunderstand!” he says, shaking his head. “I’m not here to debate the validity of whatever your traumatized, lonely little brain decided was love, all I’m saying is that Five? Dolores is a mannequin. She’s plastic.”

Five jumps over so he’s standing on the couch next to Klaus and gives him a solid kick in the arm. Klaus hisses out a curse and grabs the offending leg, yanking on it so that Five is pulled down to sprawl halfway across his lap. “Will you calm down, you feral little child?” says Klaus. “Are you my darling older baby brother or are you my horrible pet rabid raccoon?”

“Fuck you,” says Five, and tries to wiggle out of Klaus’ grasp but his sibling’s bony arms are surprisingly strong (or maybe Five is just way smaller than he used to be. Fuck). “ _Let me go._ "

“No,” says Klaus. “Behave or I’ll tell Allison you bit me.”

Five wants to retort that he did no such thing but then he remembers the whole incident with the doctor and the eyeball and the fucking snowglobe Klaus had smashed over his face to sell the bit and thinks better of it. 

“Anyway,” continues Klaus, as if he’s not currently pinning a very squirmy, very pissed-off fifty-nine-year-old teenager, “point is? Plastic doesn’t have gender.”

Which...is true, actually. “But she was in the women’s section!” argues Five, because he’s not about to just accept that someone else could be right about something.

“So am I half the time! Five, it’s all made up. Gender is fake.”

Five goes still at that. He thinks about Klaus and his skirts. He thinks about Ben choosing his name. Shit, gender _is_ fake. But also real. Because Five is a man. A boy. A—whatever. And Teddy is a boy. Probably. And Teddy _isn’t_ trying to kill Five (also probably), and when Five thinks about his dark curls and his sheepish grin and the breathy way he’d sounded when he talked about taking leaps he starts to feel all warm and squirmy and his cheeks get pink and he can’t sit still and he almost feels young for the first time _ever_ and—

“Holy shit, Klaus,” he says, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes. “I think I might be gay.”

“Welcome to the club, brother,” grins Klaus, and pats his shoulder. “We gotta go shopping first, though. No brother of _mine_ is going on his first date dressed like a schoolboy superhero.”

Five’s veins flood with dread as visions of Klaus shoving him into a dressing room with a tidal wave of feather boas inside it fill his mind. There is a part of him that recognizes this as unnecessarily dramatic, but Five is very tired and not in the mood to be reasonable. “ _No_ ,” he says.

“Oh, yes,” says Klaus. "Now go call your boy back."

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not sure how i feel about how this turned out? it feels to me like the weakest so far but that might just be me lmao. it is what it is i guess. also just as an aside i hope you like teddy bc i care him
> 
> edit: bc people keep commenting on the juno steel reference, here is my hc. klaus goes sober after they fix things and gets noise cancelling headphones as a better coping method. he starts in on audio dramas. he and ben listen to tpp together bc duh and they both cry a lot over monster’s reflection bc juno and benzaiten draw a parallel that I’m trying not think about. klaus’ favorite character is peter. ben’s favorite character is buddy. they make five listen to it and he claims not to like it but he is a LIAR and his favorite character is rita 
> 
> anyway yeah you know the drill! thank you for reading! drop a comment if you're feeling generous! my tumblr is [here](https://thepensword.tumblr.com) if you want to visit me there instead


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